Welcome to Confessions Of, a weekly series where Task & Purpose’s James Clark solicits hilarious, embarrassing, and revealing stories from troops and vets about their job, deployments, and time in service.

I’ve long been a fan of military rhyming couplets. I think they seem to be such an intriguing aspect of American military culture. Here, with a lot of help from my Task & Purpose colleagues, are some I and they remembered. Please add yours in the comments section.

A new trailer for the upcoming installment in America’s favorite human-flaying Predator franchise just dropped, and considering this R-rated action flick starring a big ugly space hunter doesn’t hit the screens until Sept. 14, it felt premature to “review” anything.

You’re not a dumb or bad person for having an opinion. You’re a dumb or bad person for not being able to articulate your opinion in a calm, persuasive, and fact-based manner. This, of course, is something we’ve struggled with as a species since the advent of the comment section. Grossly facile statements, Godwinism, and ad hominem harassment has become commonplace in virtual houses of debate.

Today, issues of surveillance dominate the news as FISA procedures, practices and their implications grab attention. As someone trained to read novels, I absorb these stories with a particular interest, because surveillance is central to the novel.